Toronto subways are back to full service after serious delays across the Yonge line caused headaches for hundreds of commuters.

Service on the Toronto subway system is back to normal now after earlier problems with the signalling system caused major delays on Wednesday.

By:Sean TepperStaff Reporter, Published on Wed Jul 03 2013

Toronto subways are back to full service after serious delays across the Yonge line caused headaches for hundreds of commuters until around 2:30 p.m. Wednesday.

“This morning, many riders suffered horrendous commutes along the Yonge line when signal problems occurred at Bloor Station at the height of the morning rush hour. For that, I sincerely apologize,” said Andy Byford, the TTC’s CEO, in a message posted on the TTC’s website.

Byford said he witnessed the unpleasantness of the situation firsthand at Bloor station and that the TTC immediately dispatched a response staff to the affected location to find the problem.

“Not to get overly technical, but the root cause was a sustained drop in electrical current to the signal system in the vicinity of Bloor station,” he said. “In short, the system worked in that it ‘failed safe,’ showing red signals. This caused a massive delay as trains had to be moved through the area very slowly.”

In order to prevent this from happening in the future, Byford says there is an urgent need to replace the signalling and some sections of track on the Yonge line as the signal system is 60 years old. Additionally, he said the TTC must do a better job of informing their customers of any extended delays.

“We are replacing the signal system and that will make it more reliable and add train capacity to the line,” he said. “More immediately, we need to get exponentially better at keeping you informed when things go wrong and at maintaining the assets that we have to work with.”

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